I loved her, knowing she pecked my father ceaselessly.

She had meat hooks he said.
Her mirror, empty

as the picture she kept of her sister,
almost a twin.
Let me get this straight,

mating is more violence than pleasure.
I don’t know if she loved

my grandfather, who could eat
a dozen eggs for breakfast while her
belly swelled.

When the body of my grandmother fell like snow, my father and I crawled into the kitchen cupboards.
There was no owl to stop her.